The tremor hit at 6:55 am local time (2255 GMT) at a depth of 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) with the epicentre offshore near North Sulawesi province, according to the USGS.

The country's meteorological agency gave a lower magnitude of 6.0 and said there was no potential for a tsunami.

The vast archipelago nation experiences frequent earthquakes due to its position on the Pacific "Ring of Fire", an arc of intense seismic activity where tectonic plates collide that stretches from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

A magnitude-6.2 quake that shook Sulawesi in January 2021 killed more than 100 people and left thousands homeless.

In 2018, a magnitude-7.5 quake and subsequent tsunami in Palu on Sulawesi killed more than 2,200 people.

And in 2004, a magnitude-9.1 quake struck Aceh province, causing a tsunami and killing more than 170,000 people in Indonesia.